Currently when testing personnel mounted equipment a horizontal accelerator is used. A horizontal accelerator may be defined, but without limitation, as an apparatus that can make an object move along a track at various speeds and can be used to create acceleration forces and pulse shapes typically seen in crashes and other types of accelerated environments. Typically during testing a rigid seat is used on the accelerator. Rigid seats are not representative of the type of seats utilized in aircraft or real world vehicles. Crashworthy energy absorbing seats are used in modern military rotorcraft and other vehicles to help protect personnel on the aircraft from the potentially lethal forces experienced during a crash. The crashworthy seating systems that are used in aircraft can cost in excess of $80,000 per seat. Therefore, utilizing these seats to qualify and test personnel mounted equipment tend to be cost prohibitive. Utilizing a rigid seat in testing and/or in laboratory environments results in inaccurate data when testing is conducted in vertically oriented crash tests. As a result, a reusable energy absorbing test seat that accurately simulates crashworthy seats used in aircraft is needed.